Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Moustroll Good movie but grossly overrated

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

nhbxxx Okay, let's start with David Carradine in drag...he gives a surprisingly touching performance. And any movie with Brad Dourif - well - what can one say? He always brings a certain something to his roles and I'm glad he continues to get work. This is one strange movie, but guess what? - it's better than some mainstream crap I payed money to see! (Blair Witch Project, for example). I caught if on TCM Underground one night (thanks, TCM!) and was instantly intrigued. If you didn't know it was filmed in 1989 you'd swear it was a product of the 1970's; it certainly has that feel to it. If you're a fan of "Spider Baby" and movies like that, you will enjoy (?) this movie!

jhall-4 Somebody compared Sonny Boy to the above. I think not. Maybe Wes Craven crossed with John Waters. An OK 70s cult film which inexplicably wandered into the 80s. One lapse in the screenplay. Sonny Boy's voice is taken from him by removing his tongue. Well, the tongue has nothing to do with production of the voice; it's the larynx that produces the voice; the tongue governs articulation of the sounds already produced. So he would always have had a voice, even if only grunts. I must admit I couldn't figure out who the heck David Carridine in the movie was until the final credits, which pairs the actors with the roles. I had to wind back and look at his face carefully to recognize him.

laymonite-2 This is one of the most ignored and genuinely horrific horror films I've seen, and I consider myself a connoisseur of these type of films...This ranks with Irreversible, I Spit on Your Grave, Last House on the Left, Hostel etc for pure nauseous shock - a child's tongue is cut out by his perverted 'parents' as a birthday present which is utterly normal in the context of the film...Forget Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Hills Have Eyes - this is real US horror, like The Girl Next Door (though not that shocking).Utterly nihilistic, very strange and well worth a look if you can find it!

Mr. Majestyk When I read Leonard Maltin's review of this film (which I'd never heard of), I was instantly intrigued. After all, who doesn't want to see a film starring Brad Douriff, David Carradine, and the guy who played Bluto in Popeye which, according to Maltin, "was filmed for no apparent reason but to offend and appall?" When I finally tracked it down via a bootleg site years later, I was expecting an unredeemable gorefest, but instead, I got a quirky, sensitive, sorta moving flick about child abuse...kind of. I mean, it ain't The English Patient--it's got a deputy getting exploderated at point blank range with a Howitzer and a cigar-chomping David Carradine in full drag (one of his best performances, by the way. Utterly believable--and he even sings the theme song!), but it works more as a drama than an exploitation flick. Some budgetary constraints show, particularly in a mostly offscreen Frankensteinish angry mob scene, but I wasn't disappointed, despite the fact that I was expecting a horror gore comedy and got an offbeat indie dramedy. Someday, this truly unique flick will be a cult classic. Watch it now and say you saw it first. (By the way, I got my copy at Nightcrew Video, a great bootleg site.)